Went down to see the cherry blossoms and kites today. No doubt we will have more than enough photos of the flowers in the days to come, so I’d like to draw your attention to the Kite Festival instead. After the jump.(more…)

aggregate the best stories, blogs and columns from The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com in the areas of parenting, health, food and dining, home and garden, pets, relationships, personal finance and more.

Prior to this launch, consumer content could be found in many different areas of the site; the goal of Smart Living is to provide a one-stop destination. Because we thought that sounded, you know, smart.

But guys, male readers of the Post, if you think this section might have anything for you, the very first image to pop up today should dissuade you.

While I am all about breast feeding, especially from clock stopping hotties covered in honey or melted chocolate, this section promises to be emasculating for those Y chromosomed.

Yo, word to the Post. “Consumer content” does not revolve just around lamb chops vert pre or governmental regulation of spanking. Consumers, and Post subscribers, come in way more stripes, flavors, and demographics than just soccer moms.

I realized last night I’d completely dropped the ball on this – The Studio Theater is doing a companion reading to their play The Pillowman, called Nightmares and Pillow Tales. I’ll endeavor to write up my experience at the Pillowman this weekend, but you’ve got several more weeks to catch it, wheras these readings are a four-time-only deal, the last two performances of which are today and tomorrow at 5pm. Stop reading and GO – this article will still be here when you get back.

In a nutshell, this is a little over an hour of dramatic reading of stories in the scary childhood tale genre. If you’re skeptical about what a troupe of talented actors can bring to some material when limited to standing in front of some music stands and without costumes beyond a black and gray outfits with a splash of red…. then you haven’t been to this reading.(more…)

Posted in Entertainment | Comments Off on The best $5 you’ll spend this year

It was a lovely spring afternoon. I decided to go for a stroll, only my “stroll” ended up lasting over an hour. I like to explore on foot because you notice things you’ll never see from a car, or even a bike (because you’re
always worrying about cars). Plus, the exercise of course.

Anyway, I was curious what distance I covered once I got home. I knew there had to be a mashup out there for this sort of thing, so I started googling and, sure enough, it didn’t take long to find just the tool.

Gmaps Pedometer is a Google Maps application (not really a mashup since the programmer is only enhancing it) with a nice interactive interface.

You start by narrowing the location using the same methods you’re already used to (an address is easiest). Zoom and pan are always available. To begin marking your route, press the “Start recording” button and double click each point along the way (a nice side effect of this is as you trace your route, the map is always centered at your last point). After each point is recorded (which you can undo) the total distance is updated. There are options for english and metric units. You can also enable mile markers and there’s even a calorie counter. Another nice feature is elevation so you can see along the route which hills you climbed and descended. For posterity, you can save, print and even export the route as GPX.

I have a friend who’s filming a public access gig for cable in Va. about Pirates Vs. Ninja. They need one or two pirates to sit at a table and negotiate with some slanty eye pan-asian ninja devils. This goes down tomorrow around 5 PM to 9:30PM at the TV studio in the Clarendon area (near Whitlow’s on Wilson).

If you are interested, then e-mail me and I’ll give you the contact information. But first you will have to explain to me why you are a Pirate reading the website of a Ninja.

Sorry tunnel-lovers, it’s gonna be above ground. Virginia has signed up Bechtel for between $2.4 and $2.7 Billion to do the Metro work out to Dulles, and all the plans currently are for above ground rail, which would allow them to keep the $900M in federal funding promised to the group for the extension. It’s a big blow to everyone who wanted an underground Metro in Tysons as part of a more “pedestrian friendly” Tysons.

Time to embrace Tysons for what it is: strip malls and office buildings and roads galore, and get real with all of it.

The risk of going about your day in your PJs is that some obnoxious blogger will make fun of you for it. However this is not one of those situations – personally I’d be happy to go about in a torn t-shirt and my gym shorts all the time, much to the horror of my darling girlfriend. Rock on with your sloth self, girl. Soon enough you’ll be in polo & khaki hell like the rest of us wage slaves, and that’s only if you’re lucky enough to work in a “business casual” office.

No I’m writing because I saw this girl in Panera the other day and thought “I’m willing to bet that she wasn’t even born yet when I went to my last Pink Floyd concert.” Good to see the flame kept going, though you really oughta pick up “Wish you were here,” kiddo – it’s a better album and a dude on fire is a way cooler image than a prism.

Don’t worry transit-riding folks, your fares aren’t going up. Well, at least not until Summer, anyway, when they may go up by an amount tied to cost of living factors like the CPI. Instead of infrequent large hikes, we’re going to get used to bi-annual or quarterly hikes in the fares. Instead of the immediate fare hike, Metro’s getting smaller, cutting “inefficiencies” out of the system.